Ormond Beach, I officially own you

This past week, I did something a little unlike me. And by "unlike me," I mean something actually responsible and mature.

I bought a house. A cute two-bed, two-bath little bungalow (I don't know if it's really classified as a bungalow; I just really like that word) with a big backyard, a sun room, and a dark blue front door. Sure, it's got some weird quirks, — like a homemade garage bathroom where the light switch is only accessible by reaching your hand through a hole in the wall — but it's home.

And I couldn't be happier that it's all over.

The experience itself was nothing short of exhausting. For the past six months, I've been knee-deep in real estate and not much else. My car was cluttered with house fact sheets. My calendar was filled with showing appointments. The only texts I got past 10 p.m. were from my realtor/partner in crime Brenda Benz of RE/MAX.

What I really wasn't prepared for — and I wasn't prepared for much — was the emotional toll the process would take on me. I fell in love and got my heart broken at least three times thanks to termites and bad roofs. There were points I considered settling for something outside the Ormond Beach city limits just because finding a house with everything on my checklist seemed pretty impossible. I'm not gonna lie to you guys, I cried a lot.

But then one day Brenda called me and told me she had found a nice little property, and I needed to get over there ASAP. Because that's the other super-fun thing about buying a house: you're forced to make a huge life decision in about an hour.

When I first walked through the doors of my future home, I didn't feel what I would expect to feel. In a weird way, I had put up a little guard over my heart not to get too excited about anything because I had been let down so much. In fact, I didn't let myself think anything was going to happen until I signed the papers and the keys were in my hands.

It was then that it all felt real — and I cried again.

Because while yes, I'm a slightly selfish person who has no trouble splurging on lattes, I never thought in a million years that I'd be able to do this. Let's be real, I don't work in the most lucrative field, and I kind of always thought I'd rent until I got married and someone else could take care of it.

But thanks to the encouragement of my parents and my friends, I realized I didn't want to wait for someone to take care of me. I wanted to do it myself.